


A Christmas Gift

by WorryinglyInnocent



Series: Lab Nights [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Bonus Sea Devil and Dragon Queen!, Christmas fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: When Gold has to work unexpectedly on Christmas Day, his colleagues and family team up to make sure that his holiday isn’t completely ruined, especially as Belle has an extra-special gift for him. With bonus Sea Devil and Dragon Queen! Takes place one year after part three.





	

 

**A Christmas Gift**

Gold’s pager was bleeping. It took him a while to work out why his pager was bleeping, until he realised that he was primary on-call for the pathology lab over Christmas, and someone at the hospital was calling him.

“Are you gonna get that?” Belle slurred sleepily beside him, and Gold gave a groan of protest at having to extricate his arms from his wife’s warm embrace and reach over to silence the annoying device.

“Hospital?” Belle asked, now fully awake, and she propped herself up on one elbow as Gold switched on the bedside lamp and grabbed the phone, dialling a number that belonged to Dr Cara Mallory, doctor-in-charge of the lab this holiday.

 _“Hey Gold,”_ Mal said. She sounded dead on her feet. _“Merry Christmas. Sorry to bother you so early, but we’ve got a bit of an emergency.”_

Gold sighed, rubbing his forehead. It was three o’clock on Christmas morning and he and Belle had both, by a mixture of pleading, begging and owing several people favours, managed to get the day off. A call from Mal meant only one thing – he was going to have to go in to work.

“There’s no such thing as ‘a bit’ of an emergency, Mal,” she said with barely disguised frustration. “It’s either an emergency or it isn’t.”

 _“It’s an emergency,”_ Mal said firmly. _“Mulan was over at the rest home visiting her gran last night, but they’ve gone into lockdown for norovirus and she’s in quarantine. Rory and I can’t run the lab on our own, and you’re primary on call, so…”_ She sighed. _“At least Ella’s working Resus again this year so we’ll have company in our misery.”_

“Mal…” Gold knew that there was nothing he could do to get out of it; procedure was procedure and he’d known that he’d never be able to have a normal festive season when he’d gone into medicine as a profession.

“Just don’t tell me that it’s a fifteen hour shift,” he said.

_“Sorry.”_

“Fuck. Well, there goes our first Christmas as an official family.”

 _“You can take a full hour for lunch,”_ Mal said. _“Rory’s agreed to cover and Ella said she’d sneak down to our break room if she can so it could almost be a party.”_

Gold snorted. “I’ll bring the tinsel. Shame Ella won’t be on the gin, or that really would be entertaining.”

_“I’m really sorry, Gold.”_

“It’s all right. Comes with the territory.” For all he might complain, he knew that Mal, Ella and Rory weren’t spending Christmas with their loved ones either. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

_“Yeah. Merry Christmas.”_

Once he’d hung up, Gold buried his face in the pillow with a groan, feeling Belle’s arms come around him.

“These things happen,” she said, kissing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, but it seems like they always happen to me,” Gold grumbled, finally turning over to look at her. “I was looking forward to sleeping in and enjoying a lazy Christmas morning with my wife. Or enjoying my wife on a lazy Christmas morning, to be more accurate.”

Belle smirked, and a moment later, he felt her small hand snaking into his pyjama pants and cupping his balls.

“Who’s to say that you can’t still do that?” she purred. “You’ve still got over an hour before you have to leave, and it would be such a shame to waste it; you know you’ll never get back to sleep now.”

Gold’s eyes narrowed as his body began respond to her ministrations, and he pulled her over on top of him to kiss her deeply, shoving the hem of her nightshirt up to her waist and grabbing her bottom.

“Mrs Gold, you have some excellent ideas.”

X

“Come on. Lunch.”

Gold stretched the cricks out of his spine and looked over his shoulder at Mal, who had taken off her lab coat to reveal a ridiculous Christmas jumper underneath it, an image of two dragons in Santa hats dancing around a Christmas tree. He followed her out of the lab, Rory waving distractedly over shoulder, and Mal sighed.

“Honestly, even on Christmas Day, I can’t persuade you to enter into the festive spirit with a jumper.”

“Mal, I’m working an unexpected fifteen hour shift when I could be at home falling asleep in front of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , or kissing my wife senseless, or dreading my son’s attempts at cooking Christmas dinner, or being teased mercilessly by my aunt. I’m not feeling the festive spirit right now.”

Mal pulled her phone out of her pocket as it buzzed and she smiled at the message. “Oh, I think you’ll be feeling it soon enough,” she said.

Gold raised an eyebrow as Mal pushed open the door to the path labs staff break room, and he had to blink at the sight that met him.

Everyone was there. Belle, Elvira, Bae, not to mention Ella still in her Resus scrubs, her partner Ursula, and Mal’s own girlfriend Regina. For a moment, Gold was perplexed not by their presence, but by the fact so many people had fitted comfortably into the break room.

“Thank God you’ve arrived!” Bae said. “I’m hopelessly outnumbered here!”

“A handsome young lad like you in a room full of beautiful women!” Ella exclaimed. “You should be in heaven!”

“Ella, you do realise that all the women in this room are related to him by blood or marriage or are lesbians?” Ursula pointed out.

“Help!” Bae pleaded with his father.

“Come on, we don’t have a lot of time,” Aunt Elvira said, before beginning to distribute what appeared to be full Christmas dinner sandwiches to the gathered crowd.

“How did you even get in here?” Gold asked, taking the huge sandwich that was offered.

“Belle and Regina snuck us in,” Elvira said, her voice completely matter of fact, as if breaking into hospital pathology departments was something she did every day. There again, Gold wouldn’t put anything past his aunt. “It was Mal’s idea,” she added, on seeing his incredulous look. “She thought that since none of you could have Christmas at home, home and Christmas could come to you here at the hospital instead.”

Belle squeezed up on the sofa next to Elvira and patted the space next to her; Gold took the seat gratefully.

“Happy Christmas,” she whispered, before catching a piece of bacon that had fallen out of the sandwich and feeding it to him. “We were considering bringing presents, but we couldn’t decide what to bring.”

“Presents can wait,” Gold said. “As long as I’ve got you.”

Belle was quite possibly the best gift he’d ever had, and three years ago when he’d invited her to Christmas dinner with him and Bae and Elvira, he’d never anticipated that he’d still have her here now. Or that he’d be married to her. He looked around the room as he continued to eat. Mal had put Christmas music on her phone and she and Regina were dancing around the small space to _Underneath the Tree_. Ursula and Ella were giving Bae and Elvira a cocktail mixing masterclass, quite a magnificent feat since there were no cocktail ingredients in sight, and Belle was just looking at him with that little twinkle in her eyes.

“I did bring you one gift, actually,” she said, leaning in close. “I couldn’t wait for tonight.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes?”

“Yes. I think I ought to give it to you in private though.”

Gold raised the other eyebrow.

“Not quite sure what to make of that, to be honest,” he said.

“It’s not a blow job,” Belle said, and Gold didn’t know if he was disappointed or not.

“Damn,” he quipped. “There was I, thinking the cleaners’ cupboard was finally going to see some action.” He finished the last mouthful of sandwich and stood, holding out at hand for her. “Rory’s still in the lab, but at least it’ll be quieter than in here.”

He led Belle down the corridors to the lab where he and Mal worked, and she pulled up a chair beside his, holding out a red box wrapped in gold ribbon.

“Open it!” she urged, bouncing on her seat eagerly as he tugged at the ribbon.

Opening the box, he blinked. It was a pregnancy test, showing a clear blue plus sign.

Belle was grinning from ear to ear.

“How… How long?” Gold finally managed to say.

“Five weeks,” Belle said. “But I only found out three days ago. Just in time for Christmas.”

Belle had come off her pill after they’d wed eight months ago, with the reasoning that if it happened, that would be wonderful, and if it didn’t, then it didn’t matter; they had each other and Bae. All the same, Gold knew how much Belle wanted to be a mother. Setting the box on his desk, he opened his arms for her and she scrambled into his lap, kissing him thoroughly, oblivious to Rory in the far corner of the room.

“You like it?” she asked once he finally let her up for air.

“Do you even have to ask?” Gold growled, capturing her lips again and splaying his fingers over her still-flat stomach. “Oh Belle. This is the second most wonderful Christmas present I’ve ever received.”

“Only the second?” Belle pouted. “What could possibly better than the news you’re going to be a dad again?”

“You, of course, you daft thing.”

Belle grinned. “I’m kidding. Merry Christmas, my love.”

“Merry Christmas, my darling Belle.”

They continued to steal kisses until a polite cough brought them back to the present. Mal was in the lab doorway, a fond smile on her face.

“Visiting hours are over,” she said softly.

Reluctantly, Belle slipped off Gold’s lap.

“See you later,” she said, “And we’ll have a proper celebration.”

She winked at him and Gold waved her goodbye.

“So, I believe that congratulations are in order.” Mal said as she put her lab coat back on and sat down at her desk, Rory leaving the room to take her own break.

“Did you already know?” Gold accused.

Mal held her hands up in defence.

“Her samples just happened to end up on my desk,” she said. “But yes, I knew. That was why I thought it best to have this little lunch date. There was no way you’d be receptive to the news if you’d just worked fifteen hours.”

Gold smiled.

“Thanks, Mal.”

“Well, I dragged you here, it was the least I could do, and I got to see Gina into the bargain.” She paused. “Happy Christmas, Gold.”

“Happy Christmas, Mal.”

And despite the unexpected work, there was a smile on Gold’s face for the rest of the day.


End file.
